Compared with some other European nations we probably came late into forestry, though it was among the high priorities of the independence, movement a century ago. Nevertheless, controversy still breaks out, from time to time. As noted here recently, the Farmers Journal for October 5th carried a headline: "Farmers Oppose Forestry".
A week later, the same organ carried a full page report of the meeting in Boyle on which the headline had been based. The grievances of the farmers were set out in more detail the over concentration of forestry in certain areas, the inability of farmers to compete to buy land that is needed for them to become viable, and the fact that farmers often don't know that neighbouring land is to, be planted until the diggers arrive. Farmers don't like the fact that Coillte, the State board, gets forest premiums: these, argue the farmers, should go only to them.
Two forestry officers at the meeting were very conciliatory, and one of them declared that Coillte's policy was indeed to cooperate with local farmers wherever possible in terms of selling back or swapping land where the case was raised. There was a comment column, running the full length of the page, making one point clear: declining rural populations are a fact of life all over Ireland and cannot be loaded entirely on forestry. In the best land in Kildare and Carlow, it says, two men with the appropriate machinery can bale, clear and stack for transporting, 80 acres of straw a day, a job which 20 years ago would have taken four men with a small baler and pitchforks a week to clear.
Forestry will not provide as many jobs, in rural areas as traditional agriculture, but it will provide real, sustainable jobs. The column ends: "Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Forestry has a lot to offer rural Ireland if it is handled properly." This is followed in the issue of October 19th with a six page supplement "Making the Most of Forestry". The writer is, as before, Hugh Scanlon and he sums up in a panel headed "Conclusion": "The future for Irish forestry is bright, and its possibilities are many" but says that there is an urgent need to remove the cause of the antagonism between farmers and forestry before it festers any further. Basically, it seems to be the price of land and the non farmers getting premiums. Probably not quite the last word.